Mothering Heights

I’m pretty sure that becoming a parent turns you into a psychopath. At least it did for me. On the one hand, I became very aware that taking a life is taking someone’s child, and I had to seriously reconsider when, if ever, it would be appropriate to take action that might leave a mother — a mother like me — grieving for a lost child. On the other hand, if I felt my child were in danger, I would kill without hesitation or thought.

The role of mothers — and daughters and wives and sisters — is the main consideration of “Where Do We Go Now?,” a Lebanese film out Friday. This fantastic film combines drama, comedy and musical numbers (one about hashish!) to tell the story of the women in a remote village who try to stop their men from joining the Christian-Muslim violence that’s raging in the rest of their country.

As the threat of violence escalates, so do the women’s schemes: They disable the village’s only TV. They hire Ukranian dancers to come to the village to distract the men. They use that hashish they were singing about to get everyone to chill. Their final maneuver is both profoundly moving and a biting slap against those who see only Other when they see people of different faiths.

“Where Do We Go Now?” is a deeply moving film about the power women have to create a world where every child — no matter how old — is safe.